


The World Isn't So Big After All

by vvyers



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Help, How Do I Tag, M/M, Marco - Freeform, dick - Freeform, not dead au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:22:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1498210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvyers/pseuds/vvyers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean's life before he met Marco. It's pretty painful but it always gets better. (:</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Isn't So Big After All

As a child, I was always known as “mama’s boy”. I guess it would be hard for me to argue otherwise. Thinking back, the first time I was attacked with one of those famous “your mom” jokes and ended up knocking the bratty kid’s tooth right out. In my defense, he was clearly picking a fight on a blind subject.

I guess there really is no point in denying how attached I was to my mother. All my life, it was only the two of. She, alone, raised me.

My father was an asshole who treasured  his alcohol before his family. Not a single day went by where he wasn’t piss drunk. On the nights he would especially drown himself in alcohol my mom would send me upstairs in hope I couldn't hear glass breaking or the furniture being tossed around, maybe she even hoped I couldn't hear the loud noise created when a palm and cheek would meet with a harsh impact. Maybe I couldn't hear her silent scream as she cupped her face and bit her lips. Maybe I couldn't hear the whimpering from a beautiful woman as she forgives and accepts a sot’s false promises. 

On a night when the bastard had drunk as much as ever, he caused the end of two families.The family he created as well as an innocent family. A _real_ family.

I remember driving to the police station really late at night. I remember watching my mother give into his tears as he vowed (like he always did) to never touch a bottle again and her kind caring nod. A nod that could cure any scrape or scratch, any bruise or cut but this wasn’t just a graze she could put a spiderman band-aid over nor promise with a light kiss that it would be better tomorrow.

Getting home, my mother wouldn’t sleep for nights as she looked for a lawyer to take the case. It had been around a week since my father was arrested when she finally managed to find a lawyer willing to work with them.

At this time, I was already off doing whatever job I could to help my mom. I’d been working twice as much considering we’d need the money now more than ever. We were already struggling before but now we had a lawyer to pay, as well as finding a new form of transportation. I knew being a kid meant I wouldn’t get much money but I also understood my mother couldn’t do it alone. I didn’t want her to.

 

* * *

 

I was cleaning behind the couch when I heard my mother and my father’s lawyer come in through the front door and into the kitchen to discuss the case. I crawled over to the edge of the couch as I slowly peeked to see the lawyer pull out his suitcase and a couple of documents. I know eavesdropping wasn’t okay but it was the only way I could get any information. I rarely saw my mom these days, although it’s not as if it mattered. She wouldn’t have told me anything either way.

I couldn’t hear the lawyer too clearly. I had to put every bit of concentration to read his lips and match the mumbling to make real words.

“...both adults in the vehicle did not survive. One child severely injured, we haven’t received confirmation as to whether he will live or not.” This I heard clearly.

Instinctively, I covered my mouth with both my hands as I let my body fall against the backside of our torn down couch. I started getting choked up while I tried swallowing the sadness when my mom broke out into tears. I could hear her sobbing, I could feel her shaking as if it shook the whole room.

I want to _comfort_ her, show her she isn’t alone but within realizing how pulled in my knees where to my chest and the tears flowing down my cheeks onto my hands, I knew I wouldn't be any help. I sat there curled up quietly crying to myself. Two, no possibly 3 innocent people are dead.

My mother decided to drop the lawyer, even she realized it was hopeless. My father ended up with life in jail, we got stuck with life in debt. I was 13.

 

* * *

 

A couple months later, we moved into a new neighborhood where the houses were attached to each other and the streets stunk like piss. My mother seemed to still have a bit of life in her. For months she worked three jobs, nonstop. All of them filled with brutal work that wore at her aging bones. I would stay up until the street lights would go out, waiting for her to drag her exhausted body to our front door. Once she reached the door she would knock three times, this was a signal that meant I could unlock the three locks on the door.

She would walk in with her shoulders low and her back hunched over so much that she looked a thousand years old.  I would help her to the couch, help her sit down and massage her feet as she told me about her day until she fell asleep. I’d fall asleep on the floor next to her, lulled by the drones of sirens and the somber howls of dogs who were too tired to sleep.

For a while we were at peace, I turned 16 and she had once again learned to smile and laugh. I was still working on whatever I could get my hands on but it wasn’t much. I even had enough time to continue school and catch up on all that I’d been missing. Everything finally felt _right_.

But one night there were no knocks on the door. I sat outside covered by the darkness of the street. I became really worried so after a few hours I went out in search of my mother. I jogged through the dangerous neighborhood going up and down the streets connected to ours. My mother had made it clear to me to never step outside once the sun went down, not wanting to make her worry I always followed that one rule.

As I headed home with my head filled of my mother and the worst cases possible, a rusty red car with a blue hood pulled up beside me. Once the car was close enough for my eyes to properly adjust and my mind to make it’s way back to reality, I realized the person in the car was my aunt. She was the only family we had from my father’s side and the only one on this street we knew.

She assured me my mother was “fine” and resting at her house. I sighed with huge relief in response and climbed in the car as my aunt drove us to her house.

My mother was passed out on the floor with her hand tightly gripping an empty bottle of beer, the stuff she swore never to touch.

My aunt explained that my mother had lost all of her jobs a few weeks back, she’d been faking that she hadn't just to make sure that I wouldn't worry. Of course I didn’t believe her, how else could my mom of been coming back with money at the end of every week.

My aunt then assured me that my mother was working for her. My heart sunk. I took a step towards my mother to  notice that her lips were smeared with red and her pale skin was tainted with red hickeys which were eclipsed by purple bruises.  

At this time my aunt’s children woke up, there were four of them and they were all born of different men. I didn’t want my mother to end up like this.

I walked closer to my mother to wake her up but stopped dead in my tracks. She reeked of alcohol, next to her were more empty bottles of beer. I’m not sure what came over me, maybe it was all the years of keeping quiet as the innocent clueless boy who only talks when spoken to had begun to overflow the cage they were sealed in.

I shouted as loud as my breathe would let me as the room spinned around me, the words easily slipped passed my tongue even though i had never spoken words so harsh before.

The only thing I clearly recall is my mother waking up to look at me, her eyes glazed as she repeatedly apologised. In that moment she reminded me of my father, had she become him?

Watching her being pitied by everyone around us, I turned the blame on my aunt, “Did you seriously think you were helping? Were you actually thinking about what was better for her?! Or was it that no one wanted your used up body anymore, so you began selling my mother.” My aunt shouted right back at me, she shouted about how ungrateful I was and how hard my mother was working for me. I didn’t care. Living in the streets would be better than having to put her through this.

My mother seemed so small sprawled out on the broken tiles that covered the floor. I grabbed my mother's arm and pulled her up roughly from the floor, her screams of pain still haunt my dreams. I forced her out of the house and my aunt began to follow. I turned around to yell at her, I threatened that if she ever came near my mother again that---

No, I can’t even try to repeat those horrible words again. Not a single word was said on our way home. Aside from stopping once or twice for her to barf we made made it back fairly quickly. My mother didn’t look at me, instead she went up straight to her room and locked me out. I slept outside her door that night.

Even without my aunt as an accomplice, my mother continued to dye her lips a dark red. Every man that entered the house only did so once. The only time my mother laughed was when she was at the company of other men, but even then it sounded hollow, her eyes didn’t glow like they used to and she only seemed to get thinner every time I saw her. When she cried her tears were filled with the bitterness of the cold, they would worm their way under the door and seep through the walls to chill my heart.

With time, my mother became sick. Her thin mattress molded around her and the sheets imprinted to form a silhouette bolder than the shadow she had become. She didn’t cry nor would she talk. She didn’t get out of bed and rarely did she eat. In between working and going to school I wanted to watch over her just as she had done for me for all my life. I had to pull us out of this hell.

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a JeanMarco au but we decided to add Jean's backstory before we got into it. It'd be easier for us this way. (:


End file.
